Rob Bell. Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. New York: HarperCollins, 2011.
Chapter 3: Hell (pages 63-93)
1. Gehenna
In Scripture, Jesus used the imagery of Jerusalem’s garbage dump to describe the realities of Hell. In reaction to this imagery, Bell said, “Gehenna was an actual place that Jesus’s listeners would have been familiar with. So the next time someone asks you if you believe in an actual hell, you can always say, ‘Yes, I do believe that my garbage goes somewhere . . .’” (p. 68)
Observation: In Bell’s discussion of Hell in chapter 2, nowhere does he mention the Lake of Fire: And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15)
2. Hell
“For many in the modern world, the idea of hell is a holdover from primitive, mythic religion that uses fear and punishment to control people for all sorts of devious reasons. And so the logical conclusion is that we’ve evolved beyond all of that outdated belief, right? I get that. I understand that aversion, and I as well have a hard time believing that somewhere down below the earth’s crust is a really crafty figure in red tights holding a three-pointed spear, playing Pink Floyd records backward, and enjoying the hidden messages.” (p. 70)
Observation: Once more, notice Bell’s sarcastic approach toward Scripture. Nowhere in Scripture is the devil depicted in a red suit with a trident, but Bell makes this the stereotypic view of believers. Also, he betrays his view that we are more advanced these days and do not need to “buy” the “caveman” ideas of the past. Scripture is not primitive or mythic.
3. The Location of Hell
Bell related a trip to Rwanda in which he observed several children with missing limbs that were shopped off by combatants who wanted to menace the people: “Do I believe in a literal hell? Of course. Those aren’t metaphorical missing arms and legs.” (p. 71).
Observation: The violence that people commit toward others is horrible, but human violence against is not the image of Hell in Scripture: "In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out. (Luke 13:28)
4. The Rich Man and Lazarus
Bell described the story of the rich man and Lazarus not as a literal picture of Hell, but a story of oppression: “. . . he wants Lazarus to get him water. When you get someone water, you’re serving them. The rich man wants Lazarus to serve him.” (p. 75) Further, Bell held that the rich man’s hell was his own decisions: “He’s alive in death, but in profound torment, because he’s living with the realities of not properly dying the kind of death that actually leads a person into the only kind of life that’s worth living.” (p. 77)
Observation: At this point, Bell regurgitates “liberation theology,” the idea that the poor are good and the rich are evil. Nowhere is this image found in the Bible. In the rich man were a believer, he would go to Heaven, and if Lazarus were and unbeliever, he would go to Hell.
5. Hell on Earth
“Often the people most concerned about others going to hell when they die seem less concerned with the hells on earth right now, while the people most concerned with the hells on earth right now seem the least concerned about hell after death.” (p. 79)
Observation: Once more, this is incorrect. Statistically, more conservative people, a bloc that includes believers, give four times more to charity than other groups.
6. Coming Wrath
“When he warns of the ‘coming wrath,’ . . . this is a very practical, political, heartfelt warning to his people to not go the way they’re intent on going. The Romans, he keeps insisting, will crush you.” (p. 81)
Observation: Simply untrue and revisionist. Notice 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10: 1:9 For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, 1:10 and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.
7. Sodom and Gomorrah
“In Matthew 10, he warns the people living in the village of Capernaum, ‘It will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for you’ . . . . And if there’s still hope for Sodom and Gomorrah, what does that say about all of the other Sodoms and Gomorrahs?” (pp. 84-85)
Observation: Jesus did not say that Sodom and Gomorrah had hope, but that legalistic people who were not real believers would be judged more harshly than the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. The point is that both groups will be judged.
8. Bizarre Passages?
“Failure, we see again and again, isn’t final, judgment has a point, and consequences are for correction. With this in mind, several bizarre passages later in the New Testament begin to make more sense. In Paul’s first letter to Timothy he mentions Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom he has ‘handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.’ (Something in me wants to read that in a Darth Vader voice).” (pp. 88-89)
Observation: First of all, to suggest that the Bible contains
bizarre passages is an attempt by Bell to downgrade its
message. Second, notice Bell’s snide remark concerning
quoting Paul with a Darth Vader voice.
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